3 Motorcycle Accessories I Can’t Live Without

Buying motorcycle gear and accessories can send even the manliest of men into fits of squealing excitement. I’ve heard rumors of the man in brown being hugged at the front door.

Here are 3 of my favorite purchases:

Gerbing Heated Liner
Stop screwing around and layering up like a tick about to burst. Cutting off your circulation doesn’t help you stay warm. Spend the 2 bills and get the ‘lectrics. You WILL ask yourself why you waited so long. Your mileage may vary, but the Gerbing brand is where it’s at, for me.

Waterproof Boots
I spent far too many miles with brain feet. Once that little drip breaches the zipper, you know the next 200 miles will be spent thinking about how disgusting your monsoon piggies feel. My personal choice is the Sidi Vertigo Rain, but there are plenty of waterproof boots to choose from!

A Tankbag
The motorcyclist’s purse. Personal preference on what a “good” tank bag is vary. I need something that isn’t too small but isn’t too big. I need to be able to carry my camera, my ipod, rain gear, a drink, and some maps. Having room left over for any other odd thing I might pick up on the way would be great. In a perfect world I wouldn’t need a rain fly – but alas my bag is not waterproof. I’m 4 years into a Coretech Tri-bag and it has held up like a champ. For daily riding I only use the smaller of the two. For longer trips I use the larger bag only. I can’t use both stacked. It becomes too tall and I can’t see the gauges. I suspect it might be wobbly in the wind as well.

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37 Replies to “3 Motorcycle Accessories I Can’t Live Without”

Besides the obvious pieces of THE most important gear – helmet & back protector, the most important accessories for me are –

– Earphones. Etymotic ER6I
– Radar detector. Doesn’t make you leoproof by any means but I won’t ride without one.
– Bicycles shorts. Worn under the leathers. They keep my bumm happy after a long day on the bike 🙂

Fuzz, great visualization on the the need for waterproof boots [barf] LOL. Love the new theme too!

You hit a few of my favs. I remember my first cold ride with heat….oh, sweet. My A-Stars SMX with Gortex have never leaked. First pair went 8 years and I still use them occasionally.

As for adds to your list. Well, with some trepidation, I will say my Garmin Zumo. Perfect? No. Excellent when used with some planning? Yes. We got along famously in California this year. A good map, auto recalc turned off and Mr. Zumo and I roamed carefree, happy and without drama.

Next would be the Stop and Go plug kit. I may be an extreme case of constant need but that little kit has saved my bacon on several occasions. Just bring some extra lube….

Last would be my Triumph brand oversuit. 100% waterproof for HOURS. You know, I know riding in the rain 😉

– the custom seat from Mr. Ed’s Moto; not only did I get a comfortable seat made to fit my rear end perfectly, it introduced me to two wonderful people: Don and Deb Weber. I’m proud to call them my friends.

Sidi Vertigo Rain. I don’t understand why all moto boots aren’t waterproof. Oh and make sure not to tuck your pants. Made that mistake once and road home with what felt like buckets full of water strapped to my feet (or brains as you so nicely described it).

Garmin Zumo and some extra SD cards full of a wide variety of tunes. Maps suck.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Samichess. I’m so sick of crappy gas station food not to mention the 5 or 6 charges on my cc statement every time I went riding. PPJ’s give me some great energy and taste so good.

The Gerbings is by far the #1 mod anyone can do. Skip the performance mods and go right for the liner – you’ll extend your riding season months in either direction.

SMX4WP for me – love the a*, dry feet make all the difference.

Lastly, after many, many rainsuit attempts, the wonder of modern technology that is the Frogg Togg. Keep your ball-soaking Roadcrafter, your body soaking Belstaff, and the pathetic attempt at an adventurer jacket called the “Marsee Adventurer”. Frogg Toggs ACTUALLY WORK! Like, DRY AND EVERYTHING!

@ Arc… Maps most assuredly do not suck. They never decide to recalculate a route while riding in a place you’ve never been, in heat that has your feet looking like Fuzzy’s brain analogy with two friends following and cursing your every turn as it tries to convince you a mobile home park is really the road you wanted… 😀

They really can make life easy if you are on the road for a few days without a planned route. They offer a good high level overview that you just cant get on the GPS. They will help you make better routes for your gps 🙂

I still find the gps REALLY distracting. So far, 99.9% of the time it has just been a radio. Still not sold on it.

I wear them all year round. Yeah there a little warmer than perfed summer boots but it doesn’t bother me. I just wish they had replaceable soles.

As for the GPS. Definitely turn the auto-recalculate off. If you blow a turn just turn around and it will pick up where you left off. Auto-Recalculate will ruin your beautiful route you spent so much time on and depending on your settings may guide you to the nearest highway or main road for the “shortest time” to your destination.

OK maps don’t suck. I have a 50 state detailed atlas that I have for backup with me usually, I’ve never used it. Mapping on the GPS isn’t that bad. I can zoom and scroll to where ever I want to go to get wide enough picture of the area I’m in. The maps are there in case the GPS takes a crap or gets stolen.

I have a Sidi kidney belt that has been with me since the early to mid 1990s. It has outlived numerous bikes and a couple of years’ hiatus in my riding. Several times I’ve thought I lost it but it always turned up. It still fits – I guess it means I haven’t gained that much weight from my 20s into my 30s – and keeps my back from getting sore. It is made of neoprene wetsuit-style material, like a beer cooler – doesn’t have any rigid parts or crash protection, it’s designed to help your posture and just has two circles of ventilation holes punched in the back. I never go on a long ride without it, and I feel a curious attachment to the darned thing just writing about it!

@ Fuzz….absolutely! The Stop & Go is great but the little CO2 cartridges just don’t do it for me. The Slime compressor is cheap, small and reliable. As well as having a bunch of different plug types included. That flat along the road in San Fran last year would have sucked without it. The tire was so chopped up it was hard to tell which divot was the actual hole. Pump it up and look for the bubbles, then plug away.

The trouble I had getting the plug out of the end was related to a lack of lube. Since I did not have Crud to hold the thing when I was plugging the second flat in WV, I was forced to evaluate the source of the problem. Turns out a little skin ointment on the end of the plug makes all the difference in the world.

my engineer boots have never given me any probs in the rain. i treated them properly (several coats at a time, every 6 months or so as per instructions) and can’t remember any issues in the rain …

had a tank bag and never really used it too much. i recently got a passenger back rest with the luggage rack and a proper bag for it and have had room to spare since.

electric lining is something i will be looking in to. you’re not the first to strongly recommend it. i currently layer up properly, meaning wool everything – specifically merino or alpaca – and the leathers. it’s hovering between 1-5 degrees celsius here and i’m stil riding comfortably!

You wrote: “Stop screwing around and layering up like a tick about to burst.” Coffee almost burst through my nose on that one. Last week I rode about 500 miles in upper 40’s, lower 50’s weather and felt like a leather clad Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

Seriously, if I had more cold riding, electrically heated gear would be on my list. However, it does rain here a bit, so recently I put Frogg Togs on my list. Hear they are pretty good.

@Ken-
I don’t understand the mysterious space-age polymers that hide under the paper-like skin of Frogg Toggs, but they really do work. For $40ish bucks – can’t beat it. They are a little billowy though. My only complaint.

When I lived in TN, my Gerbing heated gear was bliss. Of course everyone razzed me about being a wimp – but I quickly reminded them that I was a warm wimp and their teeth were chattering 🙂

I’m with you on the tank bag. Just ordered a new one so I could keep the Nikon handy. Planning to do a review on the blog in a few weeks after I’ve had time to test it out.

The other cold weather riding gear I found that really worked is a pair of battery powered boot inserts. They are just the front part of the boot, paper thin, and lasted an entire day’s ride on the small batteries – much better than the bulky electric socks I tried.

My feeling is that it’s much easier to stay safe when you’re warm and can actually feel what’s going on with the bike. Too many layers dulls the senses. Embrace the wimpiness!

… it’s much easier to stay safe when you’re warm and can actually feel what’s going on with the bike….

I’m TOTALLY with you there!

I fought the heated gear for a long time. Now when i think back i ask myself – why? The Gerbing liner is no more bulky than most of the zip in fleece or quilted liners for textile jackets. Why NOT plug in? I don’t think it’s wimpy at all. The only people who say that are the ones who haven’t tried it. Once you sip that kool-aid you’ll never look at it as wimpy again 🙂

How much time did I waste being cold?? And not even just on very chilly days. When the temps hit 60 at nite, and the wind blows right, there’s nothing better than slipping the liner in and turning it up for a little added boost to your core temp. Huzzah liner!

My 3 things i need to ride?
1. my bike. a big one.
2. my leathers. rain gear and heaters are unnecessary with the right cowhide (don’t tell me about your extreme cold, I have ridden in sub-zero weather with just a jacket and chaps.
3. my balls. If you need a “motorcyclist’s purse” what you REALLY need is to sell your bike and get yourself a nice SUV. Pansy.